Saint Louis Billikens

The Saint Louis Billikens are the collegiate athletic teams from Saint Louis University. This NCAA Division I program has teams in soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, swimming and diving, cross country, tennis, track and field, and field hockey. They compete in the Atlantic Ten Conference (where they are the westernmost member, and both the first member located west of the Mississippi and in the Central Time Zone). The school has nationally recognized soccer programs for men and women. The school has heavily invested in its on-campus athletic facilities in the past twenty years with the creation of Hermann Stadium and Chaifetz Arena. Chris May is the current director of athletics.

An early SLU football coach, John R. Bender, is said to have been the inspiration for the nickname "Billikens," which is still used by the school's athletic teams. During the 1911 season, according to one version of the story, local sportswriters commented that Bender bore an uncanny resemblance to a charm doll called a Billiken, which was a national fad at the time. His squad became known as "Bender's Billikens" and the name stuck.

The Bilikens were a charter member of Conference USA in 1995, but left to join the A-10 in 2005. By the time Saint Louis left C-USA, it was one of four members of the conference without football programs. Only three of those schools will still not have football in 2013: Saint Louis, DePaul, and Marquette (the fourth school in the group, Charlotte is adding football in 2013 as they return to C-USA after 8 years in the A-10).